Dates set for special elections

Lack of consolidation costs San Diego $100K

The inability of the city and state governments to consolidate a pair of special elections in March will cost San Diego taxpayers an additional $100,000.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday a special election will be held March 12 to fill the 40th state Senate District seat vacated by Democrat Juan Vargas’ November election to Congress.

That put the San Diego City Council in a tough spot about an hour later when it had to decide when to hold a special election to fill the District 4 council seat left open by Tony Young’s Jan. 1 resignation. City officials had been pushing the governor to pick March 26 because that was the ideal date for the city. It made sense to consolidate the two elections because about 15,500 registered voters overlap the two districts.

The City Council voted unanimously to go ahead with the March 26 election for the District 4 seat based on the recommendation of City Clerk Liz Maland. She said that was the only date that would give potential candidates two weeks to gather the 100 signatures from registered voters required to qualify for the ballot. Maland said that if the March 12 date was used those signatures would be due Friday, which would give candidates only four days.

For a normal election, candidates have four weeks to gather signatures.

The election will cost the city between $355,000 and $385,000, about $100,000 more than if the two contests had been consolidated on a single date.

Eleven candidates have opened fundraising committees for the race although no one can officially run until the signature-gathering period begins Friday.

One quirk of the coming election is that because Young was re-elected in 2010 — before redistricting added Redwood Village and Rolando Park to the district — his replacement must also be decided by the same electorate. Therefore, the newest District 4 neighborhoods will be represented by the new council member but won’t get to vote in the election. About 7 percent of the district’s 143,000 residents fall in that category.

The City Attorney’s Office said Monday those circumstances can’t be changed as it is settled constitutional case law.